This all started when using our Trends tool; I wanted to find hitters’ Plus/Minus at each point of temperature during games. I’ve always read and heard that they typically perform better when it’s hotter, and I wanted to confirm this myself. Here’s what I found:
Huge spike once you get up to 90 degrees or so. I thought this issue was at rest and all confirmed in my head. But then I came across an odd finding – on DraftKings, hitters have scored fewer fantasy points each month throughout the MLB season on average, while pitchers are the exact opposite. Obviously, it gets hotter as the months progress, so what gives here? Why the conflicting data?
I’m sure there are many studies that dive into this topic in greater detail, but I’d hypothesize that it’s perhaps due to bullpens getting better and managers adjusting to lineups. But what’s especially interesting, and what I really want to discuss, is that Plus/Minus doesn’t follow exactly like we’d expect – I thought it should probably follow the fantasy point graph tighter than it does. The big difference it seems is with hitters.
There is a crazy dive all the way from May through July in terms of hitters’ Plus/Minus, although their actual fantasy points scored levels off mostly from June through August. Also, their Plus/Minus spikes back up in August, although we don’t see that at all in the fantasy points scored graph. What could be a reason for this?
My guess: site pricing. It’s possible that perhaps hitters score less and less as a whole throughout the year – for whatever reason – but sites pricing hitters may not catch on to lower scores until a later point (August, as our graph shows us). Looking at pitchers’ Plus/Minus and at the dip in September, I thought that might be due to an over-correction of pricing. However, batters faced the same drop. That’s odd – perhaps pitching continued their upward climb, but starters got yanked earlier and managers relied on their bullpen more?
Really, our biggest concern as fantasy players is with Plus/Minus – we want to know how players are performing in relation to their salary (value). As such, this data shows that we should perhaps focus on pitching more than hitting in the summer months, even if doesn’t intuitively make sense with the weather data.
